By Yves Ephraim
In a previous post I indicated that my first order of business to “Empowering the People” would be to review the Constitution of Antigua and Barbuda.
One of the key purposes of a Constitution is to protect the rights of citizens from the overreach of the state. For a free and harmonious society to exists, citizens must have the confidence that individuals weilding the power of the state would not have untrammelled power to trample their rights with impunity or without recource.
I mentioned previously that our current constitution is written in such a manner that appears to give the citizens rights but introduces loopholes that give the state very nebulous discretion to violate those said rights. I previously pointed out that property rights is one such right that is under attack recently. I would really like to remove those wide areas of discretion.
No constitution is effective unless there is a general culture of the Rule of Law.
This legal principle was established through the Magna Carta and infers that NO ONE is above the law.
The Rule of Law, suggests that residents; citizens; the state; and those who wield the power of the state are all subject to the law. This means that if two different people commit the identical offense the outcomes should be the same. This is what constitutes justice. So if a politician rapes a woman he should get no less of a sentence than an ordinary citizen.
Recent happenings in Antigua and Barbuda exposed a weakness in our system to curb the overreach of those who wield the power of the state and it shows that the expected constitutional safeguards are ineffective.
I always thought that our constitution, made the position of the Police Commissioner an independent entity, where he or she could act without outside influence. I was of the opinion that it was one of the Commissioners responsibility to be blind and impartial with the enforcement of the law.
Recent happenings has made me wonder if my understanding of the role of the Commissioner of Police is as I had thought.
For example, in the saga with the destruction of the leader of the opposition’s property the PM thought that the destruction of the APUA installation at Morris Bay may seem prima facie related. The PM openly implied that he expected the police to question the leader of the opposition. One could argue that the PM may be warranted under the circumstances to suspect the opposition leader. However, I thought that it would have been the independent prerogative of the Commission of Police to decide whether to pursue an investigation or not.
Indeed, from recent news reports, it appeared that the police immediately are currently in the process of questioning the leader of the opposition.
Whereas I have no difficulty in questioning the leader of the opposition in regards to the event at Morris Bay, by the same token, when the PM openly shared that there was widespread fraud in the public sector with regards to the bypassing of controls in unauthorized purchases of vehicles, I must wonder why the police did not, with the same sense of urgency, pursue the matter to determine if there was any wrongdoing.
To me, more evidence was given with the matter of the vehicles than linking the opposition leader to the arson in Morris Bay, yet I hear no news of the police investigating the matter of the fraudulently acquired vehicles? We learnt that government officials were transferred and even resigned. This suggest more than prima facie evidence.
Is the Police Commissioner suggesting by his actions that some people are more equal than others so that, the rule of law only applies to one set of citizens while some others are exempted?